Category: Anarchism

A housing rights activist featured in a 2 Investigates report is facing felony charges in Alameda County for attempting to acquire an Oakland woman’s house through a little-known law called adverse possession.

The first of the two CMUs was opened quietly, without the public scrutiny required by law, in 2006 in Terre Haute, Indiana; the Marion, Illinois CMU followed in 2008. In fact, at a hearing in my case before I was sentenced, my attorneys argued that giving me the “terrorism enhancement” could result in my designation to a CMU. How right they were! The units are designed to isolate prisoners from the rest of the prisoner population, and more importantly, from the rest of the world. They impose strict limitations on your phone calls home and visits from family and friends — you have far less access to calls and visits than in general population. The communications restrictions at the CMUs are, in some respects, harsher than those at ADX, the notorious federal “Supermax” prison in Colorado. Also, unlike ADX, they are not based on a prisoners’ disciplinary violations. When my wife and loved ones visited me at the CMUs, we were banned from any physical contact whatsoever. All interactions where conducted over a telephone, with Plexiglas and bars between us. Until they were threatened with legal action, CMU prisoners were only allowed one single 15-minute phone call per week.

I have been struggling with the idea of “partisans” ever since I first heard the term used to dismiss the Makhnovshchina. Calling the insurgents of Ukraine simply partisans is so imprecise. What kind of army tries to comfort and reconcile with enemy combatants as soon as the shooting stops?

The Soviet authorities and their agents often depicted the Makhnovists as pitiless assassins, giving long lists of soldiers of the Red Army and members of the Communist Party put to death by them. But the authorities were always silent about the essential fact, namely about the circumstances in which these soldiers or Party members had been killed. They were always victims of combats started or provoked by the Communists themselves, combats which were forced on the Makhnovists when they were cornered by the Bolsheviks. War is war; there are always victims on both sides. But the Makhnovists understood perfectly that they were making war, not against the soldiers of the Red Army as a group or against any of them individually, but against the handful of rulers who directed this mass, who disposed of them, and who valued the life of a Red soldier only to the extent that it was useful for the preservation of their power. This is why, although they often struggled bitterly against the Red Army units, once the battle was over the Makhnovists related to the soldiers of the Red Army with the same spirit of brotherhood and friendship which characterized relations among themselves.

On the 3rd December 1917 a conference between a Russian delegation, headed by Leon Trotsky and German and Austrian representatives began at Brest-Litovsk. Trotsky had the difficult task of trying to end Russian participation in the First World War without having to grant territory to the Central Powers. By employing delaying tactics Trotsky hoped that socialist revolutions would spread from Russia to Germany and Austria-Hungary before he had to sign the treaty.

After nine weeks of discussions without agreement, the German Army was ordered to resume its advance into Russia. On 3rd March 1918, with German troops moving towards Petrograd, Vladimir Lenin ordered Trotsky to accept the German terms. The Brest-Litovsk Treaty resulted in the Russians surrendering the Ukraine, Finland, the Baltic provinces, the Caucasus and Poland.

When the indignant uproar had subsided, the fugitive from the death-sentence demanded the floor. His pale face was deeply furrowed, suffering spoke from his large, hunted eyes, and he talked in a voice trembling with suppressed excitement. He dwelt at length on the recent events and the difficulties in the way of the Revolution. The anarchists did not close their eyes to the counter-revolutionary menace, he said. They were fighting it tooth and nail, as proved by the numerous comrades on the front and the great numbers that had laid down their lives in the battles against the enemy. In fact, it was Nestor Makhno, an anarchist, who with his peasant rebel army of povstantsy had helped to rout Denikin and thus saved Moscow and the Revolution at the most critical period. Anarchists in every part of Russia were at that very moment on the firing line, driving back the enemies of the Revolution. But they were also fighting the plague that had brought in the counter-revolutionary pest: the Brest-Litovsk peace, which had disintegrated the revolutionary spirit of the masses and had been the first wedge to break the proletarian forces and their unity. The anarchists and the Left Social Revolutionists had opposed it from the very first as a perilous step and a breach of faith on the part of the Bolsheviki. The policy of the razverstka, introduced by the Bolsheviki, the forcible gathering of products by irresponsible military detachments, had added fuel to the fires of popular bitterness. It had aroused hatred among the peasants and workers and had made them fertile soil for counter-revolutionary plots… (p. 733-734)

Due to the fact that most of our internal issues on each march and action to date have come from a lack of information on what the tactical parameters of a particular action are expected to be, TAC will be calling for tactical parameters on this and all future FTP marches that may change as we learn and practice our skills in the streets.

Note that these are the wishes by the callers of the march. In the interests of solidarity please respect these parameters. These are being called for this march only. This goes both ways — please be respectful enough of the event to not pursue certain actions at this time if they are being put on the “please don’t” list; likewise, if you are uncomfortable with someone performing an action that is acceptable within the march parameters DO NOT INTERFERE with them. This is respect for diversity of tactics, and also proper solidarity in the face of our common enemy. There will come a day that this practice, discipline and restraint will serve us well as a unit.

If you cannot follow the parameters DO NOT ATTEND. They will be read before the march during the rally. People will be given the opportunity to back out if they feel they cannot respect the tactics, with no loss of face.

Doesn’t everyone expect to see these ex-military LEO types freak out more often? Most of these deluded men who want to be police are already damaged. When they pass through recruitment, training, corruption, shame, and denial of every day practice within police, they are required to insist on a greater good. When the scales fall from the eyes, some police off themselves, others break down, become senseless to suffering, and some find targets for rage that isolates them from friends, family, community.

The government and law enforcement churn out damaged automatons at best. Fatalistic misanthropes tune their appearance to hide emptiness placed by authority’s insistence on command and obedience. The immediate reaction to arresting a kid for smoking pot is the horrible realization that good people are ruined by the law.

The LAPD has long played a vanguard role in white supremacist policing in the United States. Whether it be the conscious recruitment of racist cops from the south in the 1960s under William Parker (sparking the 1965 Watts Rebellion) or the continuity of well-worn brutal methods under Darryl Gates (sparking the massive 1992 L.A. Rebellions), there has been little new under the sun. Even after 1992, when change seemed for a moment inevitable and when the Bloods and Crips had, themselves, laid down arms and put forth a plan to rebuild the city, this long-needed transformation didn’t materialize. Instead, South Central became South L.A., Gates was canned, and the LAPD forcibly destroyed the gang truce. Nothing had changed.

It wasn’t long before the next scandal. Toward the end of the 1990s, what many had already known became public knowledge: that the LAPD, and especially the Rampart Division, routinely brutalized suspects and planted evidence. As a result of this revelation, the LAPD was charged under the RICO Act (as a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization) and placed under the federal oversight of a consent decree that would only be lifted in 2009.

Not coincidentally, “Globocop” Bill Bratton, currently en route to advise the Oakland Police Department, amidst widespread public opposition, is credited with cleaning up the LAPD, and Dorner’s statement appears on many websites alongside a picture of the former officer beaming alongside Bratton (it has emerged that Dorner mailed evidence to Anderson Cooper last week, including a gift from Bratton, on which he wrote “Thanks, but no thanks Will Bratton”).

From rfi eng (March 17th, 2018) Ten years after being rounded up in a well-publicised raid by anti-terror police, defendants in a trial for the alleged sabotage of a rail line did their best to ridicule the prosecution and show their lack of respect for the court this week. The case, which started out as an accusation of a terrorist plot, appears to have bee […]

From First of May Anarchist Alliance By A, First of May Anarchist Alliance – Michigan Collective. Over one million high school students walked out of class on Wednesday, March 14th 2018 in what was the biggest school walk out protests since the Vietnam War. These students have been raised with school shootings being a norm. As they march out of class and int […]

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